Amazingly, We Take For Granted That Instinct

I Meditate For The Last Time On This Mountain That Is Bare, Though Others All Around Are White With Snow. Like The Bare Peak Of The Koan, This One Is Not Different From Myself. I Know This Mountain Because I Am This Mountain, I Can Feel It Breathing At This Moment, As Its Grass Tops Stray Against The Snows. If The Snow Leopard Should Leap From The Rock Above And Manifest Itself Before Me - S-a-a-o! - Then In That Moment Of Pure Fright, Out Of My Wits, I Might Truly Perceive It, And Be Free.

When I'm In The Field, When I'm Working, I Keep Very Careful Notes. I Wear Big Shirts With Big Breast Pockets, And I Carry In Them Two Little Spiral Notebooks.

Here I Am, Safely Returned Over Those Peaks From A Journey Far More Beautiful And Strange Than Anything I Had Hoped For Or Imagined - How Is It That This Safe Return Brings Such Regret?

I ... Had What Kierkegaard Called 'the Sickness Of Infinitude,' Wandering From One Path To Another With No Real Recognition That I Was Embarked Upon A Search, And Scarcely A Clue As To What I Might Be After. I Only Knew That At The Bottom Of Each Breath There Was A Hollow Place That Needed To Be Filled.

It Is Related That Sakyamuni [the Historical Buddha] Once Dismissed As Of Small Consequence A Feat Of Levitation On The Part Of A Disciple, And Cried Out In Pity For A Yogin By The River Who Had Spent Twenty Years Of His Human Existence Learning To Walk On Water, When The Ferryman Might Have Taken Him Across For A Small Coin.